Predictions for the Year 2032

Martin Armstrong, an asset manager with billions of dollars under his management, has a fascination with the year 2032. According to him, the current order of things will come to an end that year, and a new order will come about.

Martin Armstrong's prediction

The current system of representative democracy will end, and something more directly controlled by the people will replace it.

That would be either direct democracy or anarchy.

Either way, it will be a win for independent people everywhere. However, this transition will not come without a lot of resistance. The establishment and their army of dependent zombies will violently resist it. So, we will see massive unrest, and World War III will come and go before we reach 2032.

Social Security will run out of money by 2032

Armstrong's predictions are too specific for my taste. But the year 2032 is not without significance. Because that's the year Social Security will run out of money, according to most forecasts. So, anyone dependent on state handouts will suddenly find themselves without money.

The immediate consequence of this will be rioting and looting in areas with a high density of this kind of zombies, and the looting will spread into neighboring areas. But it will not spread very far. Anyone with a house in the country, and their finances in order, will sail through the unrest with little to worry about.

The end of state funded programs

However, anyone dependent on the state will have to radically change their ways.

The list of systems that will collapse is long:

• State funded NGOs and international treaties
• Fiat based money systems
• Welfare immigration
• Public schools
• Public health
• Public welfare programs

None of this will survive.

Private programs that will emerge

Instead of the above mentioned public systems, we will see a return of:

• Free market commerce with little to no regulations
• Gold based money systems
• Labor immigration
• Private schools
• Private health
• Private in-house servants

Those without money or capital will have to work for a living. No-one can expect to live off of the state, because the state will be reduced to nothing, or near nothing.

Shifts in religious preferences

Once the rioting and looting comes to an end, people will have to radically reconsider their world views.

The widespread worshipping of the state, as a magical entity that can provide food and shelter for free, will come to an end. Triumphant religions like Islam will also come into decline, because of their parasitic idea of subjugation and taxation of the non-believer.

Without a state to fund them, adherents to these religions will have no option but to either go into all out conquer mode, or convert to something less oppressive.

With little appetite for bloodshed among most people, the vast majority of parasites will mend their ways and become productive members of society. As a consequence, conservative Christians will see a large influx of new believers, at the expense of state worshipping, Islam and other cults with inherent parasitic tendencies.

Conclusion

It is impossible to say exactly how things will pan out in the years to come. But it is safe to say that those with money in the form of gold will be greatly cushioned. Those with capital in the form of real world necessities like land, factories and resources, will also fare well. As will those with the skill sets required for the safe operation of said capital.

Making predictions

By John William Waterhouse - http://uploads6.wikiart.org/images/john-william-waterhouse/the-crystal-ball-1902.jpg http://www.wikiart.org/en/john-william-waterhouse/the-crystal-ball-1902, Public Domain, Link

Predictions for 2026

2025 is coming to an end, and it's time to make another assessment of previously made predictions, as well as a new set of predictions going forward.

Assessment of predictions made for 2024

My last full year prediction was made late 2023.

Much of it didn't come true in 2024. But by 2025, I've been proven right.

This is not the first time this has happened.

I keep making accurate predictions as far as events are concerned. My problem is that I keep thinking they are more imminent than they were.

So, I will draw out my timelines as I make predictions going forward.

The new era

My assessment of 2022, made back in early 2023, was that the so called Progressive era that started in 1913, has come to an end.

This assessment looks increasingly accurate. Progressive era institutions are devolving, and new doctrines are emerging.

This will almost certainly continue in the years ahead.

Devolving institutions:

• The WHO
• UN climate science
• NATO
• EU
• Western central banks
• Islam
• Socialist policies

Emerging institutions and doctrines:

• New Monroe doctrine (the "Donroe" doctrine)
• Gold back finance
• Russia-Chinese cooperation
• India
• Africa tilting East
• Christian renaissance
• Libertarian politics

Geopolitics

The US is in the process of pulling out of Europe. So, Europe will have to find its own way. The push is currently for continued hostilities towards Russia. But I won't think this will continue for long.

The war in Ukraine will end with Russian victory. The war in Gaza will end with Israel winning at the expense of its popularity. However, the US will continue to support Israel.

With the EU in decline, European nations will go their own way. They will choose cooperation and trade with Russia over armed conflict.

Africa will see US interfere in regions where militant Islam is active. The Russians will be active in the Sahel, where they will keep France out. China will also expand their influence.

The net result will not be proxy wars, but peace and economic growth.

South America will continue to tilt towards libertarian doctrines, led by Argentina. The result will be economic growth followed by population growth.

India and China will continue their growth. This may result in more tensions. But here too, peace will prevail.

Health

Common sense health is currently replacing institutional health.

This will result in improved health, especially in the US, as predicted back in May.

Price inflation

Gold went up a whopping 50% this year It's currently trading at $4,500, which is more than 100%.

This means that we have blown past the two technical limits at $3,000 and $4,000, found in the long chart.

It also means that we're headed for hyper-inflation. Because the gold price is a reliable early indicator of monetary weakness.

Western central banks are in decline, and the only way out is a gold based standard.

Price inflation will be high by end 2026, but probably not into extremes.

As a consequence, some gold based alternative will establish visibility. There will be some early adaption.

This new money will either come reluctantly from the public sector, or it will emerge from the private sector due to market demand.

Popular politics

Trump has introduced a new type of politics that is confusing his opponents.

It consists of a combination of trolling and real-politics. While his opponents get hung up in his trolling, real changes are made to the global order.

This makes it look like socialism and Islam is making a comeback. However, the opposite is true. Conservative and libertarian forces are getting stronger.

Christians are turning away from controlled institutions, which makes it look like this religion is in decline. But we're merely seeing a shift away from institutions. There's even a an awakening going on.

This trend has only started.

Demographics

This is another long term trend that is largely misunderstood.

There are, within all nations, a considerable subgroup that reproduces above sustainability. So, it is incorrect to linearly expand the current population decline.

What is in fact going on is that the anti-population groups within nations are going extinct.

The pro-population groups, on the other hand, are growing.

The pro-population consists of conservatives, libertarians and Christians. So, the future will turn increasingly towards these ideologies. However, it will take years before this trend becomes obvious.

Education

With conservatives, libertarians and Christians in the ascent, education will turn away from socialism and anti-population doctrines such as climate hysteria and the like.

This too will emerge slowly at first, before becoming obvious some years down the line.

Conclusion

2026 will be marked by continuing chaos. However, patterns will start to emerge. The new era is taking shape.

Quarterly performance of gold up until 2026

Pharmakeia

Pharmakeia, also known as sorcery or witchcraft is a practice that aims to deceive and control others by the use of medicine and hypnosis.

The Bible warns about this practice. We should neither practice it ourselves nor let ourselves be fooled by it. However, recent history has shown us that almost everyone fell for the spell cast by the elite, and they nearly managed to enslaving us.

Even the most skeptical is in some way affected by pharmakeia, because we all hold various believes that are poorly founded in reality, but heavily pushed by the school system, the media and the elite. However, many are waking up from their hypnosis. We're seeing a return to nature, aka God's creation.

A distinguishing property of pharmakeia is that it seeks to emulate or replicate nature. Instead of real money, i.e. gold, we use fiat, a type of money substitute that robs us in our sleep through inflation. Instead of healthy food, we eat synthetic alternatives, often augmented with artificial supplements, and medicines.

Natural foods like butter are replaced with artificial alternatives like margarine.

We're told that vaccines have made us all healthier, but child mortality is higher among the vaccinated than the unvaccinated. In the US, Amish children are the healthiest. They take no vaccine at all.

When things go amiss, and we fall ill, we beg for more medicines. But they too make us ill.

Similarly, people buy Bitcoin in order to avoid the fiat trap, not realizing that Bitcoin too is a form of pharmakeia. It's an electronic token that has been ascribed a price. Monetary value has been assigned to something that has no physical representation.

Then there's AI where dead things are given a spirit of sorts. Unlike a calculator, which is merely a calculating tool, or a car which gets us places, we're now to believe that an AI vehicle, commonly referred to as a robot, is something with a soul.

None of this will last. Nature will reject it all. While we may have safe, self driving cars in the future, we will never prosper under pharmakeia. An AI girlfriend is not a girlfriend, a vaccine is not an improvement on our immune system, Bitcoin is no alternative to gold, and margarine is no alternative to butter.

Stay real!

Every other path leads to ruin.

Mask of the beast

Natural Cycles

The political elite likes to think of their subjects as robots. This is evident from how they structure society. Even long after the factory line was a common work destination for many of us, schools still operate according to this formula, bosses require our physical presence at the office, and we're only given a few days off at predetermined times of the year.

None of this is natural. Most of us are typically more inclined to focus on labour during fall and spring than we are during summer and winter. Deep down, we follow an agrarian cycle. Spring is for setting things up for summer. Fall is for getting in the harvest. Winter is for rest and indoor activities, and summer if for being out and about.

One thing I noticed about life in Norway when I lived there was the almost unbearable pain of having to force myself out into the cold and dark of winter in order to go to school and work. Staying chained to a desk during summer was equally painful.

When I ended up unemployed for about a year, all that anguish disappeared, and I just knew I had to find a way out of the system. That was around 2004. By 2011, I made my decision to end my professional career. By 2017, I was fully out of the system. Today, I thank my lucky star for having managed to get out of the system, and I'm determined to help my children achieve the same level of autonomy.

My wife is similarly determined to take control of her life, so it was no surprise to me that she kept our son home from school today. She didn't feel like sending him away in the rain. We're ignoring the system as much as we can. The experts can say what they please. We do things our way, and we're not alone. The progressive era has come to an end. People are tired of having to ask for permission.

Fireside education

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Parental Coaching

I'm a firm believer in the idea that there's a natural order to all things, and that the key to success is to live according to this order. I have also lived long enough to have noticed a change in the way I experience time, and that this has affected my thinking. I've gone from being an impatient doer to a patient planner. I've become distinctly strategic in my thinking.

This I believe to be the natural arch of our lives. We start out full of energy and lust for action, and we end up cautiously planning for the future. This is so universal that it is reflected in religion and in the structure of traditional society. The elders and heads of households are in charge of law and order. They are also the ones deciding on what the family or tribe as a whole should invest their resources into.

This arrangement is that of a medieval court, with the king and the queen in charge, and their princes and princesses acting out the advice handed down to them. In this, there is of course a great deal of liberty and autonomy given to the younger generation. However, when it comes to strategic positioning, they are as a rule best off following the advice of their parents.

Unfortunately, this natural order of things has been much corrupted over the last century. The progressive idea of our time has been to replace parental wisdom with expert advice, and a lot of people have taken the bate. Many have handed over control of their children to the state.

The result of this is that many miss out on the joys and rewards associated with parental coaching. The parents don't accumulate insights into how things work, because they have no intention on giving advice. The children don't listen to their parents because they have nothing valuable to say.

But not everybody has embraced the progressive idea. There are plenty of people still arranging their lives according to the traditional format, my wife and myself being two of them. We may have partially embraced the progressive idea in the past, but we have by now thoroughly rejected it. We are the heads of our household, and we see ourselves as our children's primary coaches.

This approach is panning out in an interesting and exciting way for my stepdaughter who my wife has given advice related to her education and career planning. My wife's daughter has studied to become an actress, and she has had some acting jobs in the years since her graduation. But the jobs are infrequent and unreliable, so my wife suggested that she take a course to become an interpreter so that she can follow two parallel career paths.

This turned out to be good advice. My stepdaughter had no trouble doing the occasional acting job while studying at the same time. Instead of going for a low paying job at the side, my stepdaughter acquired a valuable skill for which there is a lot of demand.

This type of coaching could only have come from someone who knows my stepdaughter well, because interpreter skills are not a given. An "expert" career adviser would most likely have suggested something different, like serving at tables.

It would also have been difficult to get this done if it wasn't for the relatively good economy of our household. If it wasn't for my wife's insights into the various talents of her daughter, and the relative strength of our combined finances, my stepdaughter wouldn't have done as well as she did. She might also have been too stressed and tired to get the acting job that she recently managed to find.

The relative safety and calm of our household has helped my stepdaughter get a part in a film project that holds some promise of success. The cast includes at least one famous name, so we're talking about a serious project, and my stepdaughter has been asked to set off several days for the job, so her part cannot be all that minor.

This might mean that my stepdaughter will soon make enough money to live on her own, and save some money for herself. That will in turn open up for more coaching. My wife and I will give advice on how to manage her savings, and what to look for in a flat. My stepdaughter can in this way focus her energy on her career in the safe knowledge that she's acting within the framework of a strategic plan.

Scouting for opportunities

Path to Liberty

It's slowly dawning on people that democracy hasn't resulted in more liberty. The people supposedly representing us aren't in fact representing anyone but themselves, their friends and their financial backers.

No amount of voting will change this because the system is fundamentally corrupt. Only the corrupt thrive, so it doesn't matter how well intended the newly elected politicians are, they are soon captured by the system, and they are either tamed or thrown out.

This is also why revolutions don't lead to anything but temporary relief from the ruling class, at best. No revolution has ever done anything but replacing one ruling class for another. Anyone joining a revolutionary movement thinking that it will bring liberty is naïve. If you're not part of the group of revolutionaries likely to take power, you're simply a useful idiot, canon fodder for the feuding elites.

This is why we should reject any call to overthrow the government. Instead, we should find ways to avoid it, starve it, and finally ignore it. While this may sound daunting and unrealistic, it's in fact the only path to liberty, and it comes with some notable perks along the way. For one, a lot of money can be saved and made without any risk simply by finding legal ways to reduce taxes and get subsidies.

First of all, we need to realize that our biggest expenses are taxes and fees levied by government. We must therefore find ways to appear as poor as possible in the eyes of bureaucrats. We must not own things that imply wealth, nor should we work long hours for salaried work if there are things of value we can do without reporting our gains to the government.

My younger brother owns two summer houses, and he works extra hours to pay for the taxes and fees associated with these properties. In contrast, I don't work at all, and I'm just as well off. The reason for this is that I live in a modest apartment in a low cost country, and my wealth is in a form that doesn't invoke taxation. My fixed income is therefore able to support my expenses.

The family business which provides me with a fixed income is heavily subsidized by the state, so I don't have to seek extra subsidies in order to live off the system. I'm benefiting from it without having to do anything. However, others may find that they too are eligible for state hand-outs. If these come with few strings attached, there's no reason not to get some of this.

A libertarian friend of mine lives on a permanent disability subsidy from the state, and I see no shame in that. In fact, finding subsides is just as an effective way to starve the beast as is tax planning. The trick is to be on the receiving rather than the giving side of the system.

Only when we have found ways to avoid and starve the beast can we go on to ignoring it. Politicians come up with all sorts of causes that they want us to join. They also have a whole series of things we have to partake in, such as elections and tax returns. However, almost all of it can be ignored without consequences. Only the tax return has to be taken care of, and that becomes very simple once we're down to no official income and no official wealth. In fact, I haven't filled in any tax return lately, so this too can be ignored once we're correctly positioned.

But the beast isn't going to keel over any time soon, so we must teach our children how to navigate the system. We should also share our insights with friends interested in learning from our experiences. This requires only that we point out the main features of our particular solution because everyone is in a different situation. Solutions have to be custom made by each of us. There's no one size fits all when it comes to liberty.

We should never push our ideas onto others because that's likely to draw resentment and anger from people who refuse to believe that the system is a trap to be avoided and exploited. However, if we lead by example, people will eventually start asking for advice. When people see that we live comfortably with less effort than they do themselves, they will want to know what's our secret, and that's when we introduce them to the virtues of libertarian anarchy.

The social contract

The Progressive Idea

The Progressive era started in 1913 with the establishment of a central bank in the US, and it probably came to an end in 2022. Peak pride, peak vaccine, peak climate hysteria, peak NATO, and an economy completely out of whack spelled the end of confidence in experts.

The planners

It started and ended with the idea that experts can handle things better than the free market. This idea was born during the Liberal era that started with the defeat of Napoleon in 1814. The progress made during the Liberal era was remarkable, and this was a mystery to many observers because the era was marked by a dramatic reduction in centralized planning. Gone was the all powerful aristocracy and clergy. Instead, we got merchants and industrialists, and they did a far better job at making life easier for people than any king or nobleman had ever achieved.

But how could something as chaotic as a free market be superior to an economy directed by experts? Many concluded that it wasn't in fact superior. All that had changed in 1814 was a move from incompetent experts to competent experts. The aristocracy had simply been replaced by a better aristocracy, namely the merchants and industrialists that had emerged.

In support of this idea, we had the observation that the most successful industrialists revealed themselves to be expert planners. They would streamline production. They would cut out middlemen. They would take charge of ever-larger chunks of the production process. This was seen as proof that it wasn't the free market that had caused the progress during the Liberal era. It was all due to better experts running things, and the ideal society should therefore be run and operated by such experts.

The experts

A society run by experts would run at an optimum. It would see more progress than any other form of organization, and an era in the spirit of this idea should therefore be called the progressive era. The term was not coined by sceptics but by the believers themselves who still proudly declare themselves as progressives.

As it turned out, people quickly discovered that there are two main strains of progressive thinking. One has the state apparatus and its bureaucracy as both the planner and executioner of policy. The other has the state as the planner, and privately held companies as the executioner. The first one is known as Socialism and the second one is popularly called Fascism. However, they are not opposite extremes as many will have it. They are two of a kind. Both hold unwavering faith in the superiority of experts over the chaos of a free market.

Conformity

Streamlining and conformity is the name of the Progressive game. There shouldn't be a marketplace full of competition. The focus should be on what's best, and the best minds in the world should gather around what's best in order to make it even better. Since this idea came from academia, it spread quickly through theoretical sciences. For instance, there can be no discussion outside of a very limited set of ideas within theoretical physics. There simply aren't any teaching positions to be had in higher education that fall outside accepted dogma.

Education is today completely set in Progressive thinking. No opposing views are allowed. The fundamentals cannot be discussed. The only area of discussion is what expert solution to choose. Stagnation rather than progress has been the end result of Progressive policies in education.

Health care has gone the same direction. We can choose between different vaccines, and we can choose between different types of pills, but there's no point in arguing for natural remedies. The experts are clear when it comes to what healthy living looks like, and it's not from nature. Man has conquered nature. The experts are now gods, and God is dead.

One world government

The ultimate goal of the Progressives is a single world wide governing body of experts that dictate all activities on the globe. This one world order was tested out for all to see during the virus scare, and it showed that the entire globe can in fact be directed by a handful of individuals. Decrees by experts were followed slavishly by every health institution in the world. However, the results were horrible. Every piece of advice turned out to be wrong.

It turns out that when we enable experts to reign freely, they quickly start thinking of themselves as infallible gods. Any idea that comes to their mind must be true, and from this idea springs pure madness. We get people thinking they can define themselves as anything they like. The mere thought of something makes it true. A man can be a woman. Wars can be won by unwavering belief. Money can be printed ad infinitum. Wind turbines can save the world from imagined threats.

The end station of Progressive policy making is pure madness, and that's what we've had for a few years now. The Progressives still think they can push their ideas further, but that looks increasingly doubtful. Now that most people have woken up to the mess created by the madmen in charge of the state bureaucracy, resistance to additional moves towards the Progressive utopia is on the increase.

The new era

We have entered a new era, much like the one we entered after 1814, and we can expect things to improve from this point forward. Now that the Progressive idea has been laid to rest for a few generations to come, we can look forward to an increasingly diverse world. The new era will be multipolar and full of opportunities for the creative and industrious.

A world of opportunities

Role Reversals

I have an INTJ personality type, which means that I function best on my own. Given that my wife and I need only one salary in order to make ends meet, the ideal situation for me is one in which I stay home and my wife goes to the office. I become the housekeeper and my wife the salary earner.

My wife would also have liked to stay at home rather than go to the office, but she's not fuzzed about the situation. She's happy that someone takes care of the house and kids while she's away. Without me to take care of things, she would have had to seek other employment because her office hours are irregular and often long, making it impossible to combine her work with domestic concerns.

Having me at home to keep an eye on things allows my wife to make more money by taking on more responsibilities at work, so my domestic activities aren't just conveniences. They contribute to my wife's freedom to work as she pleases.

This in itself is proof that the modern arrangement of having two salary earners per household is neither convenient nor particularly profitable. Two salaries doesn't mean twice the income. Once stress and inconveniences are calculated into the final figure, it's clear that there's little gained by having two salaries.

This is particularly true in countries with progressive income tax. Even one salary may be too much fuzz to be worth it, as was the case when I still worked long hours in Norway. Cutting down on the hours by 20% resulted in no more than 10% reduction in my take home salary, and I got a whole extra day off. No wonder many people choose to cut down on the number of hours spent at work.

The idea that having two salary earners per household is somehow empowering is a political fiction created in order to generate more taxable income for the state. Dual incomes are not empowering. They're not signs of wealth and engagement in society. Dual incomes are by and large signs of poverty. The rise of such arrangements over the past decades indicate a drop in affluence rather than a boom.

There should ideally be one housekeeper and no more than one salary earner per household, and it's best for the kids to have mother at home during their first five years of growing up. However, once kids get a little older, fathers are just as good at bringing kids up as mothers. They may even be a little better in that they tend to promote independence and a sense of adventure. Fathers tend to promote science and craft while mothers promote security and care.

Without a parent at home, education of children becomes entirely a matter of institutional learning. Parents become secondary to the educational system, which is another reason why politicians tend to promote the double income family model. Not only do they get to tax an extra salary, but they get to indoctrinate the children as well. It's a great arrangement for the state, and something to be avoided by anyone who wants their children to grow up happy and confident.

I must admit that I wouldn't have been as comfortable in my position as the stay at home parent if it wasn't for the fact that I receive a reasonable fixed income every year, so I understand that it may seem overly daring to rely on nothing but a single income. But I would have insisted on my current arrangement with my wife even if we had no fixed income. The only difference would have been  a willingness on my part to be the salary earner if that turned out to make more money than my wife is currently making.

The role reversal that we have in our household doesn't include a reversal of our decision making hierarchy. The fact that I'm the housekeeper doesn't affect my position as the head of the household. I'm still the final decision maker when it comes to things that affect the family as a whole. This isn't simply because I'm a conservative soul, but due to the fact that the man should always be the head of the household. It's the perfect arrangement for reasons that I've explained before.

My wife and I are happy in the way we've arranged things for ourselves, and I suspect many others may benefit from similar arrangements because I don't think we're unique in the way we experience the world.

The trick is to value family and time correctly, and to think outside the box. We need to be open to the possibilities inherent in your relationships, and take full advantage of what's there. Key to success is a healthy relationship with our partner, and a refusal to go along with the myths spewed by the state.

Fireside education

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Making Deals with the Devil

Here's an article on an interesting development in Brazil. Welfare recipients may soon have to prove that they, and their children, are fully up to day with their Covid vaccination schedule in order to receive their hand-outs. On a similar note, Covid vaccines are now part of the regular vaccine schedule for kids and adults in the US, which means that public schools will be able to refuse unvaccinated children access to their services.

The pressure is on to get everyone fully up to date on their boosters. Especially the poor are being targeted. Without the resources to get around the restrictions, they have no choice but to comply. However, the better off will soon be targeted as well. Any kind of state pension will eventually demand some kind of compliance with health guidelines. Following this, private pensions will be required by law to do the same.

The point of this can't possibly be a concern with people's health because there's no evidence to suggest that any of the mandates foisted on us over the past years have had anything but negative effects. The point must therefore be compliance and cost reduction. People forfeiting government services represent cost reduction for the government, and people willing to submit to possible harm are preferred to those who don't.

The fact that recent health mandates have proven themselves harmful rather than beneficial can in this perspective be seen as a bonus. Those who submit to the mandates end up living shorter lives, and are therefore less of a drain on the system. Not only do the politicians get their much desired kick from a display of subservience among their subjects, they get the financial benefit of lower costs as well. It's a win-win situation.

Offering to Molech

By Charles Foster - Illustrators of the 1897 Bible Pictures and What They Teach Us http://associate.com/photos/Bible-Pictures--1897-W-A-Foster/page-0074-1.jpg, Public Domain, Link

The Future of Education

Public education is another institution that revealed itself to be potentially dangerous to our health during the virus scare of 2020 and 2021. Much harm was wrought by the policies enacted during these years. Little kids being forced to wear masks, and college students being forced to take the vaccine, were policies that now reveal themselves to have been damaging.

The health problems caused by the state are likely to persist for years to come. Just like modern health, public education will become increasingly shunned as we move forward into the future.

There already is a preference for private schooling, and home schooling has gained popularity. This will continue, and there will be calls for less state interference in this field.

My wife and I decided to home school our son at the height of the virus insanity back in 2021, so we have some experience with this, and I think it's clear that home schooling isn't going to be the big thing going forward. It's too time consuming and demanding. Private schooling, with curriculums decided upon by the schools rather than the state is a more likely path.

Home schooling will be additional, as it mostly is today. I plan to give my son instructions when it comes to private finances. There are other things I'll discuss with him as well. This informal exchange of ideas is also education. But it's not something that can replace institutional education.

The overall trend in education will be towards the way things were done prior to the progressive era. We'll have formal education done in schools, and we'll have practical trades learned through apprenticeships. Wherever it makes sense to teach a trade on site, this will be done. Universities will only be used for knowledge that requires formal education.

Businesses may combine college courses with apprenticeships in training of young employees. This will be paid for by the businesses. Few will take a university education with no idea of what to do with it.

With less state interference in education, there will be more choice and more opportunity to streamline and custom fit education to the needs and preferences of parents and student. There won't be a single nationwide curriculum for anything. There will be schools with their own curriculums. Instead of exit exams, there will be entry exams. Colleges and universities will require potential students to prove proficiency in the subjects they are about to take on as students.

None of this will happen overnight. We're talking about trends that will take decades to unfold. But there's no lack of evidence that this is already starting to happen. Distrust in public education is widespread, and those who can afford to do so send their children to private schools.

Fireside education

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Social Mobility at 10%

A Facebook friend of mine posted a quote by some guy lamenting the fact that 90% of those who are born rich die as rich, and that 90% of those who are born poor die as poor. This was to be taken as evidence that hard work doesn't matter and that the system is rigged against the poor.

No solution was proposed for this supposed problem, but I assume that the intent was to bolster support for inheritance tax, reverse discrimination and the abolishment of private schools and home schooling. That's usually the sort of remedies that people obsessed with relative wealth and social mobility propose. Rather than making an effort to better their lot, they want politicians to sort things out for them.

What's also missing from the picture is how much better off we are today than hundred years ago. It has taken no more than three generations to lift a huge part of the world out of poverty. What does it matter that social mobility is confined to 10% per generation, if the entire economy is moved up several notches in the same period?

Furthermore, 10% social mobility isn't bad. It translates to a turnover of 40% every five generations. Only people obsessed with perceived injustice towards themselves can complain about such a fluid system. To lament this healthy turnover is childish to the extreme. Like a kid lamenting the fact that his friend got an ice-cream. Instead of being happy on his friend's behalf, he resents it.

Only people with an immature and egocentric world view can lament a system that is as fluid as the one we live in. Instead of seeing themselves as one person connecting past and future generations, they see themselves as the end station. All generations before them had but one goal, and that was to produce them as their ultimate offspring. They are the end station, and as such, they deserve the very best the world can offer.

This egocentric world view is sad and empty, because the purpose of life is not consumption. Production isn't the purpose either. The purpose is to build a solid foundation for the future, and we do this in cooperation with others, even if we have no children of our own.

This means that we sacrifice some consumption now with the intent to make life better for people in the future. Instead of consuming everything we own, we put aside some of it for the children. We save and we invest in the education and wellbeing of our children or other people's children. None of this requires the "help" of politicians.

If we are good at laying a foundation for our children, chances are that they will either remain at their current status, or move up a notch or two. If we neglect our role as foundation builders, we're more likely to see our children descend into lower classes.

To succeed in this, we must encourage our children to do what's right for themselves and their future families. We must discourage gambling and over-consumption. We must encourage them to be polite and friendly, and respect people's right to privacy.

Our children are just as much a node in a long chain of generations as we are. That too, we must teach them so that our generational project is sustained into the future. It's not all about us, nor is it all about the future or the past. The right balance is where we get the most out of life for ourselves while at the same time building a solid foundation for our children.

Constance and William

Av Gustav Borgen – Norsk Folkemuseum: image no. NFB.49970, via digitaltmuseum.no., Offentlig eiendom, Lenke

A Ten Year old Rebel

Part of my daily routines is to pick up my ten year old son at school in the afternoons, and it's a little disheartening to see how many of the parents wear their masks like good little serfs. The children are also required to wear a masks from age ten and up, which I find positively revolting. Even worse, the school administration have encouraged parents to vaccinate their children, and to have even younger kids wear masks. However, there are signs of hope even here.

It appears that my wife and I are not the only parents who were appalled by the school's recommendations. Some must have been just as vocal as my wife, and expressed their thoughts to the school board as well as to their children. This is evident in a change in tone by the school board, and by the fact that some kids don't wear masks, despite school policy.

My son can report of several kids in his class that do not wear their masks, and my son has now joined this group of rebels, so far without any protests from the teachers. My wife and I did not push this on our son. We've left it up to him to decide what to do. We don't want to push him in front of us in our personal crusade against mask mandates. However, we're not making any secret of our position either, and we are happy to hear that he's doing his little part in putting an end to the hysteria.

It appears that mask wearing is become a personal choice, also in schools. My son is enrolled in a private school, so the administration is necessarily more sensitive to parents' wishes than would be the case for a public school. But I see kids wearing their masks sloppily in public school yards when I pass them on my walks in our neighborhood. There's dissent everywhere, and teachers are accepting it without much fuss.

As an added bonus, my son is learning an important lesson. He's being trained in the subtle art of subversive action. He's developing a healthy skepticism and defiance that's likely to serve him well in life.

Mask of the beast

Navigating a Storm

My wife was understandably angry with our son's private school. They had no business recommending vaccines for their pupils. However, I was not happy with my wife's unilateral decision to pull our son out of school. The vaccine was a recommendation, not a mandate, and there's no reason to believe that our son will be treated badly due to our decision to keep him unvaccinated.

The best response to adverse events is not to fold nor to retreat prematurely. It's much better to stay firm as long as possible. We need to know what others are doing, and we need to influence them with our presence. That's how attrition warfare is fought, and the reason we should keep our boy in school as long as possible.

However, in the space of four months, my wife went from one extreme to the other. She was ready to take the shots in August, and ready to pull our son out of school in December. But there was no need for me to get angry with her this time around. I was prepared to have our boy at home for a while until things calmed down. There would be no great harm in it. It wasn't my preferred position, but it wasn't the worst either.

My response to my wife's December outburst was to do nothing. I didn't make any changes to any plans. I didn't talk this over with friends and family. I figured things would sort themselves out, and it turns out that I was right. My wife told me yesterday that she'd like to see our son back to school when they open in a few days, and I told her that I wholeheartedly agree.

Once again, the mechanisms of the perfect arrangement is playing out to everybody's satisfaction. My wife was allowed to make some whimsical and emotional decisions while I stood firm. I vetoed her back in August, when she was about to take the shots, and I held firm in face of her recent overreaction in the opposite direction.

The result of this is that my wife feels secure in our relationship. I set the strategy, and I correct her when she's inclined to do something counterproductive. She's free to be whimsical and impulsive because I'm at the helm of the ship, keeping it on a steady course through the storm. In the end, everybody's happy, and there's no lasting damage. On the contrary, the relationship stands all the more firm, having weathered yet another strong side-wind.

Navigating a storm

By maybe Allan C. Green or George Schutze or maybe Alexander Harper Turner - This image is available from the Our Collections of the State Library of Victoria under the Accession Number:, Public Domain, Link

Building a Community

Things are coming together at a rapid pace. Much of it bad when viewed superficially. But it's all good in the end. God, aka Nature, is putting things into motion. There are opportunities for those who care to look.

I had a lunch meeting with my Christian friend here in Porto, and our ties have been strengthened. He has invested money in modest real estate projects in remote locations, with the idea that his properties can be developed for rural tourism, and simultaneously function as fall back places to live in case things get too whacky in town.

As it turns out, he already has a German friend coming over as a vaccine refugee. Things are so bad in Germany that people see themselves forced to leave. Portugal is a favored destination, due to its culture and history of low key anarchism. Portugal does not have the totalitarian and conformist inclination that we see so many other places. Portugal is full of secret societies and hiding places. It was never fully conquered by the state apparatus, despite being the oldest nation state in the world.

My friend had an experience with vaccine passports similar to what my wife had a week ago. He went to a restaurant with some colleagues. As the only one of them, he had no proof of vaccination, but the waiter gave him a free pass anyway. Once again we have confirmation that laws are not followed rigidly in Portugal. It's part of their culture to let things like this slip.

The following day, my friend was approached by one of his colleagues. He half expected his colleague to scold him, but the opposite happened. My friend was praised for his bravery. His colleague expressed regret over his vaccine status. He would have loved to have been among the unvaccinated himself.

However, far from everybody is regretting their vaccine. My wife was surprised to get an e-mail from our son's private school, urging parents to get their kids vaccinated. It came as a shock to my wife, because she has always held the school's owners in high regard. They are widely read intellectuals, frequently quoting classic liberal thinkers. But I never trusted them, so I wasn't all that surprised.

The schools owners are among the fearful, as I suspected, and it's now on full display, so we'll have to think up some alternative for our son.

All this adversity, while unpleasant, has woken people up to the true nature of the state. My views are being vindicated, and my solution is being taken more seriously. My Christian friend is still attached to the nation state and party politics, but he's increasingly curious about my suggested alternative, not least because it contains a practical guide to the construction of God's Kingdom on Earth. No Christian can deny the appeal of such an idea.

I'm telling my friend that if he wants to build this alternative, he is in a position to do so. Furthermore, the Kingdom of God is not Paradise. It's not something that comes about on its own. It has to be built by us. Nothing will happen unless we start on it. Jesus isn't coming down to sit on his throne unless we make that throne ready for him. Not that I believe in a flesh and blood return of Jesus. I prefer the less magical interpretation, that it is his golden rule that "sits" on the throne. His return is a spiritual awakening. It's the arrival of the 5th Empire, aka God's Kingdom.

My friend and I are now in an informal alliance. We are in charge of two domains that fit together nicely. There's potential for mutually benefitting cooperation. His friend from Germany is likely to fit into this puzzle as well. My wife and I have other friends who also see the need for alternative infrastructure. My youngest son in Norway is another ally. It's all coming together, as described in my book. It's no longer pure theory. It's a real possibility that an increasing number of people are ready to try.

Hope

Virus in the Classroom

One of the girls in my son's class was in contact with someone with the virus, which prompted her parents to give her a virus test to be on the safe side. This test came out positive despite her showing no symptoms, and this fact was communicated to everybody last night.

This led to a great deal of commotion. Everybody agreed to test their children, and the school sent out an e-mail with instructing on what to do. Being a private school, they have some flexibility in how to handle the situation.

The school made the decision to allow all children with a negative test to continue classes. Apart from that, it's up to the parents to decide whether to keep their children home or not. The school sends out homework assignments to the children that stay at home. Those that go to school will receive regular classes.

This incident is interesting in several ways. First off, it reveals that few families have had much experience with the virus. Two years into the plague, and many have had no direct contact with it. Their only knowledge of it has been through media sources.

Additionally, the school's response is typical of the flexibility inherent in Portuguese culture. They didn't slavishly refer to official guidelines prescribed by the state. They came up with something sensible on their own.

The incident will also reveal a full list of who's fearful and who's not. Showing up at school on Monday with my son, I'll make a note of who's there, and I'm going to be there without my mask, as is my habit these days. That way, I get to know where the parents stand, and they will get my position confirmed.

With the most fearful parents gone for ten days, as recommended by the state, there's an opportunity in this. My fellow fearless parents and I can expand our reach in the style of attrition warfare. I'll make the most of this by striking up conversations whenever possible. Ten days on, and we might know each other quite well, which will give us an advantage on the fearful who've been huddling at home in isolation.

When the fearful return, they will be met by people as unfussed as ever, and this will hopefully relieve any additional fear that they might have built up at home.

Conversely, if the fearless fail to make the most of this, we might see things deteriorate. The fearful will be more fearful, and with no counterweight on the part of the fearless, it will be them rather than us that gain ground in our struggle for influence.

Mask of the beast

Doing a Southwest Airlines

Rule one of civil disobedience is to not talk of civil disobedience. The same is true about being a sovereign. There's no point in talking about it. True sovereign behavior is to follow nobody's rules but ones own. A sovereign doesn't petition the state for anything, does not beg for anything, and does not give anything away freely. The sovereign acts, and keeps the talking to a minimum.

Once this is properly understood, all sorts of possibilities come to the forefront. We realize that we don't have to tell the state about our private affairs, and we don't have to follow their rules. Case in point is the debacle surrounding Southwest Airlines' vaccine mandate. Laws and regulations forbid pilots and air traffic controllers from striking. However, they are nevertheless striking. They're just not telling anybody about it. People are calling in sick and taking days off. They are moving slowly. They are dragging their feet. But none of this can be officially called a strike. There're no leaders. Nobody can be arrested because nothing illegal is going on.

A similar logic can be used for home schooling. There are all sorts of rules and regulations associated with this. It's at best a bureaucratic nightmare and at worst illegal, depending on what jurisdiction we happen to live under. However, there's nothing illegal about keeping a sick child home from school. Teachers are obliged to help in such situations. Parents can ask the teachers about home schooling while the child is recovering.

This gives tremendous flexibility to anyone willing to tell a white lie from time to time. With teachers petrified by the virus, we can call the school and tell them that our child has tested positive and that we think it better if the child is kept home for a few days. We can add that the child has no symptoms, in case the child is asked to participate in some online activity.

The asymptomatic virus infection can then be kept going for as long as we please, and we can ask teachers to suggest things to do to keep the child up to date on the curriculum. We can express frustration with the virus that simply doesn't go away.

The trick is to come across as conventional, friendly and helpful. With such a façade, there's almost no limit to what liberties we can take for ourselves.

A conventional looking guy

An Appearance of Conformity

For all the gloom and doom about western liberties being decimated by a wave of totalitarian propaganda and law, we're in fact quite free to do whatever we please. The reason for this is the lack of conviction at the side of the totalitarians. Our top politicians may well be a bunch of psychopathic control freaks, but the average corporate drone is not. Most people operate instinctively according to the golden rule. They're also more influenced by appearance than substance. Hence, we can get away with a lot if we do things politely and with an appearance of conformity. We don't have to ask for permission. We can do what we like. If we're caught breaking a rule, we ask politely for forgiveness. It works like a charm just about always.

This insight has implications for all sorts of things, including home improvements and tax returns. It's also something to keep in mind when shopping for home schooling resources. We don't have to use resources as intended. We don't have to ask for permission to do things our own way. We can simply do what we please with what's available. If someone objects, we can always come up with some lame excuse wrapped in layers of politeness and humbleness.

My wife and I visited a small private school a week ago with the intention to find some official program with a good fit to what we would like for our son. We got a good first impression, but it's not an exact match, and it's a little expensive. After thinking about it for a week, we've come to the conclusion that we might as well let our son remain in his current school, and simply do whatever we like to do in that context. In fact, we could put him in a public school, and still do a lot of what we'd like to do. But public schools are more prone to fascism than private schools. They are also more saddled with bullying and a general bad atmosphere among students, so we'll stick with his current private school.

The idea is to keep our son at home a day or two every week to let him freely explore his interests. We know from experience that he doesn't need to be at school every day to keep track of the academic side of his education, and we also know that he has special talents in a wide range of disciplines not taught at schools. He's quite autonomous, and learns a lot from researching things on the web. The days spent at home will not be wasted, and our son will grow up with a sense of autonomy and mastery that will serve him well in life.

The trick is to do this without causing a stir among the teachers, and our strategy will be one of ambiguity. We'll let it shine through that we're purposely keeping our son at home to explore his own interest. But we'll never insist on the school accepting this. There will be no demand on our side, and their response will hopefully be one of tacit acceptance. If there's initial reluctance to what we're doing, we'll face it in slowly. If there's strong resistance, we'll scramble our son's schedule to make it look random and accidental.

As the resistance fades, we'll be more open about what we're doing. We may even bring it up at occasions if we come across practical hurdles that the school can help us overcome. Again, there will be no direct insistence on anything. Everything will be based on whatever tacit understanding that evolves over time.

To our advantage, we live in a country where this way of doing things has been the normal mode of operation ever since before the Romans. This is the Portuguese way, embedded in their collective psyche, and therefore likely to work just fine as we move forward into whatever dystopian horror show the political elite has in store for us.

An appearance of conformity

A Good First Impression

My wife and I had an informal meeting with the people running the private school that's in charge of our son's music classes on Saturdays. Our aim was to figure out if they can help us with the practicalities associated with our home schooling project. In particular, we want help with bureaucratic hurdles, and guidance so that we know we're on track with our son's education. Additionally, we would like our son to have a place to meet kids his own age, with some opportunity for free play.

The school is located relatively close to where we live. I can walk there in twenty minutes. It's housed in a Victorian building, once occupied by what must have been upper middleclass people. It's spacious, but not big. To the back, it has a modest garden, turned into a play park for the kids to run around.

The whole thing is a family run affair, with the head master and his wife being the parents of five kids, two of whom are pupils at the school, and the oldest being a college student in charge of physical activity. Everything is made to measure for each child, but not so much that it gets ridiculous. Academic studies, like maths, Portuguese and English are taught conventionally.

They didn't seem too concerned with the plague and all the rules associated with it, and free play is done with all the kids of all ages running around freely, but under the watchful eye of two adults.

The deal they could offer us was to have our son at their place three days a week, and let us take care of things the other two days. To guide us, there would be pamphlets and homework assignments. Additionally, they suggested we register our son with an organization that specializes in taking care of the bureaucratic side of things. We didn't ask what this would cost, but I suspect their package is no more expensive than alternative private solutions.

I got a good feeling about the school and the way it was run so this will probably be the way we arrange things for our son this coming year.

Fireside education

By Transferred from en.wikibooks to Commons by Adrignola using CommonsHelper. Originally uploaded to en:Wikipedia in November 2006 (log) by Darentig (talk)., Public Domain, Link

Home Schooling Tactics

We sent our boy back to private school right after Easter, and what we learned confirmed all our suspicions when it comes to the efficiency of current teaching practices. Our son was only marginally out of sync with his peers. He had not fallen behind by much in anything, despite our relaxed teaching style at home. However, there were a few issues that needed attention. My wife and I had overlooked a few things, and it's a good thing we had them sorted out. Our decision to send our boy back to school was correct in more ways than one.

The conclusion we can draw from this is that our boy needed no more than two months of formal schooling to be up to speed with his peers. Any additional time at the private school would have gained him nothing. It's therefore tempting to repeat this trick this coming school year. However, that would be pushing our luck with the school's owners. They want kids to stay the year, not come and go as the parents please.

But it has come to our attention that there is at least one school in Porto that operates with reduced overall time spent at school as its guiding principle, and this school happens to be the one where our son is having his music lessons on Saturdays. The philosophy of this school is to keep things interesting, entertaining, and short. The school is not a day-care centre. It's an educational institution.

The idea behind this is that kids can do most of their school work at home. An hour or two at the school every now and again is all it takes to provide the education. If one or both of a child's parents are at home, there's no reason to have the kid at school for hours on end every day.

This is such an interesting concept that we're going to look into this in more details to see if it really is as good as it looks. We know that the school has excellent music teachers, so we can assume that the other tutors are equally good. However, there's a big formal exam coming up for our son next school year, and it may be more practical to do things more according to the generally accepted rules so that we don't get caught in some Kafkaesque nightmare at a public office somewhere.

Fireside education

By Transferred from en.wikibooks to Commons by Adrignola using CommonsHelper. Originally uploaded to en:Wikipedia in November 2006 (log) by Darentig (talk)., Public Domain, Link

Zeitgeist in Flux

My wife came across a man with a cane yesterday, so there's someone out there who has either thought of this on his own or has been inspired by someone else.

Also of note is a flurry of ideas being shared in the comment section of Zerohedge. Some suggest we should all dress up as thugs. Others point out the recent illegality of wearing a mask. Others still are searching for overall strategies to cope with the totalitarian impulse that has been unleashed with the plague as an excuse.

While this is too little to judge where things are headed, there seems to be a shift in attitude. It's no longer about being pro or anti masks. It's about liberty. We want to make up our own minds. We don't want others to tell us what to do. Our liberty is not something that others can infringe on simply by being vocal or in a majority.

Walking with a cane is one way to display this argument. Whether we're for or against masks is not central. Rather, it's the message that we do as we please and we don't care what others think. We want to be left alone. We reject the Marxist idea that one group can coerce another group into complying with a certain set of rules. We don't identify with any particular group.

Once we realize that this is not about masks, but about Marxist divide and conquer, we find a way out of this mess. We simply refuse to identify with one group or another. We change our minds frequently, and we do as we please.

I for one don't mind if others go around with their masks drawn above their noses. Heck, I may even benefit from it. But that doesn't mean that I must comply myself, and this applies to all things. I don't care if others believe in global manmade warming. I don't care if they think kids should be taught gender identity at school. I'm not paying much in taxes, and I teach my son to ignore gender identity. Why should I take any side in this?

This us against them idea that permeates public discourse is stupid, and I refuse to take part in it. What do I care what others believe? Now that I've started to think more along these lines, I see division everywhere. Just now, there was news on TV about pro and anti mask demonstrations. How stupid isn't that? Nobody benefits from this nonsense beside the Marxists, always eager to turn everything into political strife.

The idea that everything must be resolved through politics has been around for so long that many now assume that it must be so. However, it's easy to show that it doesn't, and it's my hope that these early signs of rebellion is the start of some swift and devastating anti-Marxist change in Zeitgeist. All that's required by us is to show the world around us that it's none of anybody else's business what we do, and the whole Marxist argument falls apart. If we all do our bit in giving this a push, we may see the future develop into something very different from that imagined by the Marxists.

A man with a cane